This invention relates to the recovery of substantial quantities of aluminum containing no more than about 2 weight percent of aluminum carbide from furnace products resulting from the carbothermic production of aluminum.
Carbothermic processes involving the reduction of alumina-bearing ores with carbonaceous reductants have long been disclosed in the literature. Unfortunately, however, it has not been possible to obtain significant amounts of substantially pure aluminum from the vast majority of heretofore practiced operations unless special procedures were utilized.